Systemic trends in football, accelerated by Covid-19, create both opportunity and uncertainty for the working lives of players. They highlight the need for more quality jobs across markets and competition innovation, resulting in FIFPRO’s commitment to “Shaping our Future” goal number 3: Jobs & Innovation.

Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) recently released ‘Professional Women’s Football: The Next Step’ to offer solutions to the challenges that Australian women’s football is facing. The PFA is seeking to increase the number of players who turn professional, encourage clubs take a long term view on investment and keep competitive balance in the W-League. One of the biggest goals is to attract and retain the best global talent amid the growth of European women’s football clubs. Similarly to FIFPRO’s Raising Our Game report, The Next Step provides a vision for women’s professional football.

Goal number 2 of the 2021 FIFPRO Shaping our Future report – sustainable growth – aims to continue to create an ever-growing economic and social impact through the game that is enjoyed by so many around the globe.

FIFPRO stresses that the ongoing consultation on the future European club competitions landscape from 2024, with a view to avoiding disruptive breakaway competitions, requires a commitment to quality jobs for players and innovative competitions across the football industry.

Iva Landeka has been captain of the Croatian women’s national team for 12 years. During her career she has won several awards including best athlete of the Croatian diaspora. She has played in Austria, Poland, Sweden and France, where currently plays for Montpellier HSC in the French Division 1 league.

FIFPRO extends its congratulations to the football federations of Australia and New Zealand for winning the right to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023.

30 August marks the one-year anniversary of Republic of Ireland’s equal pay deal. While announced in 2021, the agreement was years in the making.

FIFPRO welcomes the positive step that UEFA has made in announcing its plans to restructure the Women’s Champions League with a new format for the 2021/22 season.

FIFPRO welcomes recent decisions by European public institutions to protect open competitions, foster accountability and improve sustainability in sports governance and decision-making as well as promoting player unions and human rights.

FIFA and FIFPRO have agreed to collaborate to accelerate the development of professional women’s football and mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. During a 90-minute video-conference call, FIFPRO shared its recently published Raising Our Game report, which extensively charts recent progress in the women’s game, including the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and makes recommendations to achieve further growth by bolstering the conditions of female players.

FIFPRO is today launching Raising Our Game, a forward-thinking report about women’s professional football which puts players at the heart of the planned development and rebuilding of the sport after the coronavirus pandemic. The report, compiled with KPMG Football Benchmark, charts the economic evolution of the game, covering match-day attendance, TV audiences and sponsorship, and details player conditions at club and national team level.